Kraft

What worked about it was the fact that we were able to effect the plan and we were able to effect the strategy and actually talk about things before the brief was locked down entirely. We got to set a lot of what the rules are overall, which really helped. [3699],[3698],[3700]
What worked about it was the fact that we were able to effect the plan and we were able to effect the strategy and actually talk about things before the brief was locked down entirely. We got to set a lot of what the rules are overall, which really helped. PROJECT ID [3733]
With the client. And part of it was the client was willing to dismiss all their preconceived notions because the brand was failing. It was failing in a big way. It was like on a five-year decline or something like that, so they were just throwing it all out at this point because they were like, "Okay. If we don't turn in two or three years, the company has told us that they're going to start writing off the brand and they're going to stop supporting it," so they were just looking at "Hey, let's just do anything." [3734],[3701],[3702]
So they were willing to sort of let us hang ourselves on the project, which for me that's great. I would much rather get hung out to dry on a project that it's my fault that we took the wrong strategic thing than get shoehorned into something and then get blamed for it on the backend on why it doesn't work because I think the best stuff usually comes out of where you can talk with the planners about it and you can talk with the client about it and say, "Hey, what you believe about these kids, when you think ..." [3703],[3735],[3704],[3736]
These kids that we're advertising to, when you think about logically the world that they're in, there's the world that grownups assign to them and the world that they actually live in. Like people think of kids playing with toys, watching cartoons, playing video games. Kids are also the same people that go outside and smash bugs on steps, break sticks to make swords out of them, and try to make soup in the toilet with food and flush it around. They live in a world where there are no rules until somebody tells them that there is. [3737]
is when they're in a different mindset than you are and you're trying to find what the client's mindset is. [3738]
It's like when you can get that sort of point and point of view to a client, which the planners, sometimes they get there, sometimes they don't, but it's like when you can get that sort of view in before the strategy is made, then when you show them the work, it's already there because you already have them in the mindset that you are before you started. It seems like those are always the biggest fights and the hardest ones to win, is when they're in a different mindset than you are and you're trying to find what the client's mindset is. [3707],[3705],[3706]
That's the hardest, most uphill struggle ever. Anyway, with Lunchables, it all worked out well. We found good people to work with in the production aspect of it, too, that you were able to trust with a lot of the building of the brand. Everybody that we worked with along the way brought stuff to the party. The client let us play a lot with the planning, play a lot with planning out what the brand was going to do, what the promotions were going to be. We got in on it all, and we got to shape it for about three or four years, and that was a blast. [3739],[3740],[3708],[3741],[3742]
We got to flatten that, which was good. We'd go through one round, and all the decision-makers were in the room. [3709]
That always made it a lot easier because yeah, definitely if you have to go through multiple rounds and you don't get to be at the later presentation rounds, then a lot of times you're depending on some number-cruncher, brand guy's presentation skills to present something. When you're counting on logic- based people to talk about emotional-based stuff, which is what you really try to have your advertising be, you always feel like you're getting thrown off a cliff. It's like you don't know what's at the bottom. It might be something soft. It could be very pointy. [3710]
At the beginning, they were pretty risk-tolerant, and that's what helped. Later on, because it was working for them, it's hard to tell how risk-tolerant they were because what we were doing was working, so they were kind of just letting us go. And as long as we didn't do any massive misfires or cause any explosions, they were being pretty nice to us. [3743],[3712],[3711]
I think that was one where the actual brief came after the fact, the actual piece of paper. It was more air-briefed to us because they were in a little bit of a crunch at the time. They had gone through a couple rounds of creative when they came to us, and they had sort of thrown an idea out to the client of "What if we make there be some sort of icon that's sort of a super-heroic icon for Lunchables?" And that was all they had, and they came back and said, "This is it. And Lunchables is surprising and surprises kids at lunch and they love getting it. That's it. Go." So it was incredibly open-ended. [3713],[3744]
e started showing stuff that was working as they were concurrently working on the brief so that all the paperwork could go through. We helped shaped the brief, we helped shape the thinking so that when everything finally did go through, it's like everything was what we said it was going to be. [3745],[3746]
Yeah, it was great because at that point you're setting the rules. Again, it's like as they were developing ... Because they were sort of developing the official paper brief that the client got, after they told us that, we got to influence that. We started showing stuff that was working as they were concurrently working on the brief so that all the paperwork could go through. We helped shaped the brief, we helped shape the thinking so that when everything finally did go through, it's like everything was what we said it was going to be. [3716],[3714],[3715]
And with a client, I mean honestly yes, they want to be surprised and they want to be entertained, but one backbone of them is they want it to be everything that you said it was going to be in the first place, which is kind of a funny dichotomy. It's like they want to be surprised, but they don't want to be surprised. I think really what it is is they don't want to have to rationalize why it fits with what they asked you for. They want to just be able to see why it fits with what they asked for. They just want to be surprised as to what it actually is. [3717]
Time, at the beginning, was incredibly short. We didn't have good timelines on the front. I think we had a week and a half to put the whole thing together, at most. I think truthfully it was like ... After we really got rolling on it, we probably had about four days, so it was an incredibly tight timeline, which I don't think that's a bad thing necessarily. They basically pushed us off of other projects for the four really intense days to work on that, but it all worked out okay. [3718],[3719]
Yeah, budget was fine. I mean it wasn't overwhelmingly good, it wasn't overwhelmingly ba [3720]
they're doing stuff for kids, they look at what kids watch and what they're watching on TV, and they look at that and they go, "Okay. Well, this is what kids like, so we'll give them more of what they like." [3747]
And I was like, "Boy, wouldn't it be cool if you could just take some of those action movie type things, put them into this cartoon type format?" And then when they see the action movies later on, they go, "Oh, I've already seen that sort of stuff." It's like we've already outdone it before they've even got to it age wise. Once you make that jump on how kids are actually taking in stuff in the world, that changed everything with it, and that's how we fueled the whole thing. [3748],[3749]
On this, it was one because there was such a short timeframe. Basically it said, "This is where we want to go," and we brought in a bunch of stuff to our ECD on that and said, "Here's what it is. Here's how you do it. Here's all the elements." I mean he was like, "Wow." That was more than he was expecting us to be able to get out of it, and so they just took it and ... I mean everything was in trouble at that point, so it was like this was either going to work for the agency or it was all going to blow up, and so we took the risk that it was going to work and it worked. [3721],[3722]
It was just the brand was doing badly and we had gone through an entire executive switchover here, so we had a new ECD and a fairly new president. I mean this client as a whole ... This is my opinion on this. This client, every time we had gotten a new executive set in, they would say, "Oh, maybe we should put you in review," and they would just run them through the gauntlet to see what they would do, and so we were at one of those points again [crosstalk 00:31:15] [3723]
No, they just threatened account- [3724]
... review. [3725]
Yeah, they would threaten account review, but not actually put us on account review. [3726]
And they would do that every time we had new executives come in at JWT, and so we were in that situation. [3727]
On their side, the client ... The reality is that most agencies have more brand experience on the individual brand than any of the clients do because they rotate off in a year and a half. I had a six-year stretch on Oscar Mayer. I saw five teams. I knew the brand history better than any of the brand managers that came into the room. But it was ... Our executive team at JWT had shifted, so Oscar Mayer was putting us under heat. [3729],[3728]
So it was a little strained there, but the actual clients I had worked with off and on for five or six years, so I could talk to the president of Oscar Mayer and not have to blink about it. It wasn't a big deal for me to get in front of him. I knew him. I didn't have conversations with him offline, but I sure wasn't scared of him. That definitely makes it easier to go in and present when you're not shaky about anything. [3750],[3730],[3731]
I was friends with the account guys pretty well, and I like the planning team. I hadn't worked with them much. I mean I had worked with the account team in one way or another off and on for a few years, just on various businesses within the agency, so it was all good. They trusted us, which trust helps no matter what you're working on, no matter what you're doing in life. [3732]
Reference Tags
[3699] Communicating ideas across domains,[3698] Promote autonomy & sense of ownership,[3700] Win-win conflict about ideas,[3733] Communicating ideas across domains,[3734] Ostrich effect,[3701] Promote autonomy & sense of ownership,[3702] Risk compensation,[3703] Ikea effect,[3735] Lack of real innovation mandate,[3704] Promote autonomy & sense of ownership,[3736] Vague goals,[3737] Empathetic disposition,[3738] Empathetic disposition,[3707] Communicating ideas across domains,[3705] Promote autonomy & sense of ownership,[3706] Win-win conflict about ideas,[3739] Collaborative-Creative Disposition,[3740] Creative Confidence,[3708] Promote autonomy & sense of ownership,[3741] Win-win conflict about ideas,[3742] Win-win conflict about relationships,[3709] Decisive leadership,[3710] Decisive leadership,[3743] Ostrich effect,[3712] Promote autonomy & sense of ownership,[3711] Risk compensation,[3713] Promote autonomy & sense of ownership,[3744] Vague goals,[3745] Forceful conflict about relationships,[3746] Win-win conflict about relationships,[3716] Ikea effect,[3714] Promote autonomy & sense of ownership,[3715] Win-win conflict about ideas,[3717] Pro-innovation bias,[3718] Planning fallacy,[3719] Unbalanced workload pressure,[3720] Appropriate resources,[3747] Empathetic disposition,[3748] Creative Confidence,[3749] Empathetic disposition,[3721] Organizational encouragement,[3722] Unbalanced workload pressure,[3723] Internal changes/challenges,[3724] Trust,[3725] Trust,[3726] Trust,[3727] Trust,[3729] Overconfidence bias,[3728] Trust,[3750] Communicating ideas across domains,[3730] Overconfidence bias,[3731] Trust,[3732] Trust